Examples

The steward presently brought along from the galley the chief ingredients of the supper, consisting of a pot of piping hot cocoa and a dish of steaming "lobscouse", to be followed, he informed me, by a jam tart.

But long before the cook's husky notes summoned the emigrants 'messmen to the galley, to receive their morning allowance of cocoa and their tins of "lobscouse", all hands were on deck, the emigrants gathered in the waist of the ship, leaning over the lee rail, and devouring with their eyes the beauties of the lovely island, fresh, green, and sparkling with the dews of the past night.

Angus ThomsonStreatley, Berkshire• Labskaus (Letters, 19 March) is only an anomalous variation of lobscouse (lapskaus in Norwegian), a sailor's stew with meat and vegetables (without meat, blindscouse) found across northern Europe but most famously associated with Liverpool, being eponymous with its natives, dialect and local dish.

"...this was a rich man's lobscouse, a Lord Mayor's lobscouse. Orrage had been wonderfully generous with his slush, and the liquid fat stood half an inch deep over the whole surface, while the potatoes and pounded biscuit that ordinarily made up the bulk of the dish could scarcely be detected at all, being quite overpowered by the fat meat, fried onions, and powerful spices."--Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 93

"He would not even stop long enough to take in fresh supplies from the bum-boats that came round the ship, observing in his decided manner 'that they were not here to blow out their kites with lobscouse, nor to choke their luffs with figgy-dowdy, but to convey the Catalan troops to Santandero without a moment's loss of time...'"--Patrick O'Brian, The Surgeon's Mate, 287